SUNDAY,  AUGUST 2,  2009

IRAN AND THE BOMB, NOT GOOD, NOT GOOD - AT 8:50 P.M. ET:  From The Times of London:

Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times.

The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.

That year, 2003, stuck in my mind.  Here's why:

A US National Intelligence Estimate two years ago concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear arms research programme in 2003 because of the threat from the American invasion of Iraq. But intelligence sources have told The Times that Tehran had halted the research because it had achieved its aim — to find a way of detonating a warhead that could be launched on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles.

That would seem logical, if chilling.  There should be a complete Congressional investigation of how our NIE was written...because no one else agrees with it, and it didn't seem to be based on much.  Maybe wishful thinking.

If Iran’s leader does decide to build a bomb, he will have two choices, intelligence sources said. One would be to take the high-risk approach of kicking out the international inspectors and making a sprint to complete Iran’s first bomb, as the country weathered international sanctions or possible air strikes in the ensuing crisis. The other would be to covertly develop the materials needed for an arsenal in secret desert facilities.

Secret facilities?  They wouldn't do that, would they?  Especially after The One's outreach to Muslim countries?  We must think better of our culturally different neighbors.

COMMENT:  It's impossible for me to evaluate this story, but it does seem very solidly reported.  It's clear there were a variety of sources.  The story notes:

British intelligence services are familiar with the secret information about Iran’s experiments, sources at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said. Although British agencies did not have their own “independent evidence” that Iran had successfully tested the explosive component of a nuclear warhead, they said there was no reason to doubt the assessment.

And that's the point.  There's no reason to doubt it.  And wise defense planners plan for the bad news, not a rosy view of the world.  Crunch time is coming for President Obama.  Within the next five months, Iran policy will either move toward success or catastrophic failure.  We hope someone in the White House understands the consequences of failure.

August 2, 2009   Permalink

CASH FOR CLUNKERS? - AT 8:03 P.M. ET:  Well, looks like the Obamans have a program that works.  You bring your clunker into a dealer, they give you a huge discount courtesy of other taxpayers, you drive off in a new car, and they destroy your clunker.  Absolutely destroy it.

Sounds good, ay?  Well, you don't have to look at the fine print to realize what a fraud this is.  Just look at the facts:

1.  The government is paying people to buy cars, many of which are produced by companies the government, in effect, already owns.  As for other companies, they'll report big sales and it will look super.  One dealer reported on TV that he's selling twice the number of cars he would ordinarily.  Well, of course!  Give people free money to buy cars and they'll buy them.  But what happens when there isn't any more government money?  Does the term "next recession" mean anything?

2.  No one is looking to see whether the companies are jacking up prices, and then applying the government discount - sort of the way colleges have a way of raising tuition as soon as kids get scholarships and loans.

3.  Many of the clunkers aren't.  This is where the real obscenity comes in.  I looked at photos of some of those cars on TV.  They looked like perfectly fine, driveable vehicles.  Yet, under the guidance of the enviro-fanatics who dreamed up this joke, they must be destroyed.  They don't meet the standards of the fly-into-Aspen-for-a-conference crowd.  These vehicles can go to charities, they can go to caregivers, they can go to schools, they can go to activity groups for the elderly, they can go to poorer countries where people would love to have even low-mileage cars.  To destroy them is an act of arrogance, conceit and self-regard.  They are being "traded" simply because someone wants a new set of wheels and is getting a government subsidy. 

There's something immoral about this whole thing - using tax money so some folks can have new cars, and depriving the needy of those old cars.  Next, someone will come up with the idea of depriving some people of their lives under Obamacare if those lives don't meet environmental standards.  Better get a sticker with acceptable numbers to slap on your chest.  Or be labeled a clunker.

August 2, 2009   Permalink

SOBERING FACTS - AT 11:22 A.M. ET:  Reader John F. Dowd reports the following:

An interesting letter in the Australian Shooter Magazine this week, which I quote: "If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington , DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 25 per cent more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US , than you are in Iraq .

Conclusion: The US should pull out of Washington.

COMMENT:  One (other) thing I find outrageous about the Obama White House is its silence on the horrible murder rate in America's cities, especially the president's home city of Chicago.  There are weekends when parts of Chicago become a shooting gallery.  And yet, the president became obsessed by an apparently appropriate arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Mr. Obama is out of touch, in many ways.

August 2, 2009  Permalink  

OBAMA UP IN RASMUSSEN POLL - AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen has been reporting a slight improvement in Obama's poll numbers for the last two days.  He notes that presidents usually get a positive bounce after news conferences, but that the bounce soon disappears.  President Obama received a negative dip after his recent the-Cambridge-cops-acted-stupidly press conference, but that dip may be easing.  It will take further polling to find out if this is a trend.

Today's Rasmussen report has the president at 50% approving and 49% disapproving, his best showing since July 22nd.  Some 37% strongly disapprove, and 31% strongly approve, a minus six, the best number since July 21st.

August 2, 2009   Permalink

REMARKABLE STATEMENT - AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  Sally Quinn, of the Washington Post, is not known for bucking the trendy trends of Washington salons.  But in a column she writes today, she breathes some fresh air into the Gates arrest story with a remarkably candid view of Professor Gates, one we've not seen expressed elsewhere:

Now, here's my own disclaimer about not having all the facts: I don't know anything about Crowley, except that his colleagues seem to support him and that he once taught a class for fellow police officers on racial profiling. But I do know about Skip Gates. What nobody will say publicly, for fear of being called a racist, is that he is notorious, especially among many of his colleagues (black and white) at Harvard, for being short-tempered and arrogant. I have had personal dealings with him in which his behavior was not honorable.

Saying that may get me in trouble. Gates is the moderator of The Root, a website owned by the Washington Post Company. I suspect that Don Graham, my boss and the company's owner, will now be forced to have us over to his home to reconcile over a cold one.

COMMENT:  Okay, I'm glad someone said it.  I'm not glad that Gates's reputation for arrogance has been suppressed in every other news story.  Clearly, the press censored itself for politically correct reasons.  Please note that Sgt. Crowley's background, reputation, and image among others was investigated in detail, and reported.

Oh, by the way, it is also correct to point out that Gates has done some very fine work.  No problem noting that.

This reminds me of another hypocritical practice in journalism - the refusal to report honestly and completely about the backgrounds and beliefs of militant leftists.  If someone is on the far right, you can be sure that his record will be given severe scrutiny.  On the left, we often get some euphemism like "anti-war activist," or "peace crusader."  Go further and you'll be called a McCarthyite.  When is the last time you saw a detailed story about the political views and backgrounds of the Code Pink crowd?  There was no last time. 

August 2, 2009   Permalink

FINALLY, RESOLUTION - AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Navy officials announced early Sunday that Marines in western Anbar Province, Iraq, had found remains that have been positively identified as those of an American fighter pilot shot down in the opening hours of the first Gulf War in 1991.

The Navy pilot, Michael Scott Speicher, was the only American missing in action from that war. Efforts to determine what happened to him after his F/A-18 Hornet was lost to ground fire on Jan. 17, 1991, had continued despite false rumors and scant information.

COMMENT:  This is important because it provides closure to the family, and demonstrates that we never stop looking for a missing member of our armed services.  It also puts to rest rumors that Capt. Speicher was still being held in Iraq.

The appropriate thing now, of course, would be a reburial at Arlington, or a cemetery chosen by the family.  The president should attend, or at least send a high-ranking representative, to show respect.

August 2, 2009   Permalink   

SATURDAY,  AUGUST 1,  2009

THE REALITY IN TEHRAN - AT 10:11 A.M. ET:  Defying any sense of decency, Iran is going ahead with trials of political dissidents.  None of the arrested dissidents, or the mullah-directed police, have been invited to the White House to sit down, have a beer, and shoot the breeze over the history of oppression.

As all this is going on, the Obamans are trying to get Tehran's attention because, you know, we are seriously interested in talking about their nuclear program.  Just let us know by September.

TEHRAN, Aug. 1 -- More than 100 political activists and protesters went on trial Saturday on charges of rioting and conspiring to topple the government in the turmoil surrounding Iran's presidential election, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

The defendants included several prominent politicians -- former members of parliament, first-generation revolutionaries and an ex-vice president -- who have been locked in a decades-long power struggle with Iran's hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Wearing gray prison uniforms and appearing thin after weeks in jail, some defendants gave lengthy confessions, saying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the disputed June 12 election free of fraud.

COMMENT:  Haven't seen any comment from the president. But the idea that the mullahs will negotiate any serious changes in their nuclear program grows more and more absurd.

August 1, 2009   Permalink

OH PLEASE - AT 8:11 P.M. ET:  The Obamafied press, thrown off its game recently by the president's plunging poll numbers, is working to get back in stride.  Analyze and excuse is the name of the game.  For example:

WASHINGTON – The success of President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda — from health care and climate change to education — could depend on how quickly he recovers from the sharp drop in support among white voters after criticizing a white policeman's arrest of a black Harvard scholar.

In the immortal words of that great philosopher, George Gobel, let's wait a gosh-darned minute.  From the figures I've seen, the drop in Obama's support began long before he opened his mouth about the Gates arrest.  This seems to be a set-up to suggest that the president's policies are popular, but compromised only by that one incident.  Not true, not true.

If Obama is to have success with the policy changes he wants, he can't afford to shed white support. Not to mention the disaster that losing the affections of many in the blue-collar, Reagan Democrat constituency would spell for any re-election campaign.

Better wait another gosh-darned minute.  The whole premise here is wrong, but results from a mentality that says, "America is a racist country. Obama has to avoid race so his agenda, which people really want, isn't hurt."

This is total nonsense.  It's Obama's policies that aren't popular.  Survey after survey shows that.  The Gates incident simply made matters worse, but it didn't create the problem.

Finally, some sanity:

Robert Shapiro, a Columbia University political science professor, noted that whites are more likely to be Republicans and independents than Democrats, and that poll numbers, even on a specific question, are almost never pure.

"I think here any decline in his poll numbers have more to do with the economy, health care, and issues other than the Gates arrest," he said. "His ability to recover has to be looked at in the longer term, which will hinge on the economy most of all, then other issues like Iraq/Afghanistan, health care, energy/the environment."

That is correct.

But the story plunges right back into some very strange territory:

Obama also could benefit from the fact that Congress is heading into its August recess. Pending health care overhaul legislation — and the still-limping economy — will be the talk of their towns as lawmakers spend the month in their districts.

How, precisely, does Obama benefit from this?  It's opposition to his health-care schemes that got him into so much trouble.  That's what members of Congress will hear when they go home.

Journalistic weirdness.

August 1, 2009   Permalink

NEW TERROR THREAT - AT 7:22 P.M. ET:  Somalia is emerging as a major terrorist threat.  We know there are Somali groups in the United States, centered in Minneapolis, from which young men have suddenly gone missing.  It is believed by law enforcement that they've gone back to Somalia for jihadist training:

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- An Al Qaeda-linked militant group waging war against Somalia's fragile government is becoming an increasing threat to Western ally Kenya and could potentially destabilize the region with dire consequences for global security, officials and analysts warn.

Kenya is President Obama's father's native country.  There might be some interest at the White House.

Al-Shabaab, one of the strongest Islamic militias battling for control of Mogadishu, has gained ground in recent weeks, according to officials, and has started to flex its muscles beyond Somalia's border with terror strikes, kidnappings and recruitment drives.

They warn that unless the world takes action the group, which wants to impose an extreme type of Islamic sharia law, could extend its grip across parts of East Africa to gain control of a region that flanks busy shipping routes already plagued by Somali pirates.

Remember the pirates?  America is snoozing.

And, say experts, the group is being backed by foreign fighters -- some said to have links to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network -- a situation that draws direct comparisons with the group's influence in pre-9/11 Afghanistan.

COMMENT:  The terror threat continues.  Even the new secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, is using the word "terror," after it had been officially retired in one of those left-wing secret ceremonies in which, presumably, the term was expunged from Webster's using a gallon of Wite-Out.

But the Wite House, or White House, doesn't seem unduly alarmed.  How does holy terror compare to Professor Gates's arrest in Cambridge?

August 1, 2009   Permalink

CHALLENGE TO CONGRESS - AT 11:19 A.M. ET:  The Pentagon wants to accelerate a critical new weapon, but it needs Congressional approval:

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Defense Department wants to accelerate by three years the deployment of a 30,000-pound bunker-buster bomb, a request that reflects growing unease over nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea.

Comptroller Robert Hale, in a formal request to the four congressional defense committees earlier this month, asked permission to shift about $68 million in the Pentagon’s budget to this program to ensure the first four bombs could be mounted on stealthy B-2 bombers by July 2010.

Hale, in his July 8 request, said there was “an urgent operational need for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high-threat environments,” and top commanders of U.S. forces in Asia and the Middle East “recently identified the need to expedite” the bomb program.

The bomb would be the U.S. military’s largest and six times bigger than the 5,000-pound bunker buster that the Air Force now uses to attack deeply buried nuclear, biological or chemical sites.

The specific need:

Accelerating the program “is intended to, at the very least, give the president the option of conducting a strike to knock out Iran’s main uranium enrichment capabilities,” said Ken Katzman, Middle East military expert for the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

COMMENT:  This is a major challenge to Congress, where irresponsibility about weapons programs is a habit.  Congress still hasn't approved the modernization of our nuclear arsenal.  We are the only nuclear power that has not recently upgraded its nuclear stockpile to meet modern standards.

Air Force spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Karen Platt said Boeing could be put on contract within 72 hours to build the first bombs if Congress approves the shift of funds by mid- August.

Congress is going on recess.  What will happen when it returns in September?  Will this get the priority it deserves?  Very hard to say.  The doctrinaire liberals control the House, where this proposal may run into some stiff opposition.  You know, sends the wrong message to our Muslim friends.  That kind of thing.

But we need this weapon, and we need it fast.

...even though the U.S. wants “this capability, especially for weapons of mass destruction targets, as soon as possible, that doesn’t mean we’ll use them -- but the planners are supposed to create capability and also send messages to potential adversaries,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national defense analyst with the nonpartisan Brookings Institution.

Important story, and we'll follow it.

August 1, 2009   Permalink

THE HIDDEN PERSUADER? - AT 10:43 A.M. ET:  America's Latin American policy borders on madness.  We are currently, and with considerable passion, trying to restore to the Honduran presidency a legally ousted leader, Mel Zelaya, who is a close ally of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro.  It makes no sense at all...unless you look at some of the people around Obama.  Superb reporter Mary Anastasia O'Grady reports for the Wall Street Journal:

Having established that making nice with the region’s troublemakers is a priority, Mr. Obama now wants Mr. Zelaya—who was endorsed by the FARC last week—reinstated. If Honduras does not comply, the U.S. is threatening to freeze assets and revoke the visas of interim government officials.

Some Washington watchers figure this bizarre stance is due to the fact that Mr. Obama is relying heavily on White House Counsel Gregory Craig for advice on Latin America.

Mr. Craig was the lawyer for Fidel Castro—er, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the father of Elian Gonzalez—during Bill Clinton’s 2000 repatriation to Cuba of the seven-year-old. During the presidential campaign when Mr. Craig was advising Mr. Obama, the far-left Council on Hemispheric Affairs endorsed Mr. Craig as “the right man to revive deeply flawed U.S.-Latin America relations.” In other words, to pull policy left.

There is plenty of speculation that Mr. Obama is making policy off of Mr. Craig’s “expertise.” It is not too much to believe. Indeed, if all policy is now being run out of the White House, as many observers contend, then the views of the White House counsel may explain a lot.

COMMENT:  It's devastating enough that the White House counsel has that background, just as devastating that the media didn't tell us, and more devastating to think that he could be having influence.  The president's domestic policy is a train wreck.  His foreign policy is another train going off the tracks.

August 1, 2009   Permalink

ANOTHER GREAT FOREIGN POLICY VICTORY, TO GO WITH ALL THE OTHERS - AT 10:09 A.M. ET:  Once again Americans are treated to another smashing victory for Obama's foreign policy and for Hillary Clinton, who must already be seething at the fact that she has to stand out there and take the punches.  From AP:

Saudi Arabia on Friday bluntly rejected U.S. appeals for improved relations with Israel as a way to help restart Middle East peace talks, saying the Jewish state is not interested in a deal.

After talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said his country will not consider steps suggested by U.S. Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell until Israel accepts Arab demands to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territories.

"Incrementalism and a step-by-step approach, has not and, we believe, will not lead to peace," Saud said as Clinton looked on at a joint State Department news conference. "Temporary security and confidence building measures will also not bring peace."

COMMENT:  Another setback.  This administration does not have a single foreign-policy success to its credit.  What must Hillary have been thinking as she stood there, listening to this latest rebuff to The One and his great vision of peace?  Maybe she was wondering how she got into this, and when she can leave discreetly.  If you can get off the Titanic and into a lifeboat, get off.

August 1, 2009   Permalink

MAXIMUM LEADER CAN CELEBRATE A SMALL VICTORY - AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  One congressional committee has passed a health-care plan.  It will take you only a few minutes to read the story, several months to understand what it says.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — House members headed home on Friday, leaving behind the outlines of a nearly $1 trillion health care overhaul that is sure to draw fire from a variety of interests, but also shows the beginnings of a consensus that would provide insurance for more Americans and give them new rights in dealing with insurers.

Note the way that's phrased.  It's "interests" that oppose the plan, but "more" Americans who will have insurance and also have "new rights."  Nothing like a little slanted journalism.  But the left-wing press has few things to cheer these days, so let's be generous.

As a final act before recessing until September, one crucial panel, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, approved landmark health legislation that could ultimately lead to coverage for about 95 percent of Americans and create a new government-run insurance program.

Well, there's the fly in the soup - another government-run insurance program.  Dream of bureaucrats making health decisions.  Dream of long lines and waits.  Dream of...the glories of socialism.

Lawmakers of both parties agree on the need to rein in private insurance companies by banning underwriting practices that have prevented millions of Americans from obtaining affordable insurance. Insurers would, for example, have to accept all applicants and could not charge higher premiums because of a person’s medical history or current illness. All insurers would have to offer a minimum package of benefits, to be defined by the federal government, and nearly all Americans would be required to have insurance.

Catch the loophole.  Companies could not charge more to an individual because of illness or history, but could they raise rates for everyone to cover the obvious losses they'd incur by covering people who are already sick?  This is not meant to be cruel - we want people to have care - but there's something here that looks like it's being done with fun-house mirrors.

In an analysis of the House bill, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that people without insurance would pay $29 billion in penalties over the next 10 years, while employers not offering insurance would pay penalties totaling $163 billion.

Now wait.  People pay "penalties," but don't get insurance?  Better look at that one with a magnifying glass.

Overall, it's impossible to say, from news stories out this morning, how this plan would work.  And the journalistic fine print notes that this bill will have to be melded together with others, from other committees and both houses of Congress, when Congress returns from recess in September.  In the meantime, members are going home and will hear from their constituents.  That's when the real fun begins.

We wonder how many members will actually be able to answer the questions that constituents - real people - have.

August 1, 2009   Permalink